My 81 GS450 Cafe Build

So I picked up this little bone stock 81 Suzuki GS450 from a buddy of mine for a song, back in June. The deal was, it belonged to a buddy of his, who has lost interest in it. My buddy had built a few bikes for himself and for others, so he had it at his home shop. The previous owner had removed the carbs to have them rebuilt, and didn't want to pay to get them out of the bike shop that did the job. So, my buddy contacted me, and said if I paid to get the carbs back, the previous owner said I could have the bike.
So yeah, what would you have done? This is what it looked like when I took possession (not my actual bike, but an exact copy):

Anyway, we got to work on it. We were fortunate that the bike was mechanically solid, and a runner when it got parked to have the carbs done. So the first thing we did was to strip all the body parts off, and began cleaning things up. This is as naked as it ever needed to be:

My buddy had a cafe seatpan and a bobbed fender sitting around his shop, so we decided to use the, both. We fixed a few odds and ends, and I set about paining the body parts. I used rattle-can Duplicilor engine black, with Metal Specks Shimmering Green, and cleared it with Engine Clear. I got a roll of gold pin-striping from Pep Boys to trim it out:

Re: The Lucky Bastard lives!!

Next, I ordered some new lights for it, in LED, to try and take some of the load off the notorious GS electrical system. I picked up a more modern looking all-in-one Taillight, with built in blinkers and tag lights. I wanted to mix a little old with new, but without anything looking out of place. For the front, I went with some simple round units. I had to use a automotive blinker module, and rewire the blinker circuit to make everything work:



The bike was already lowered in the front by about 3/4", so we left it that way. It also had a pair of ACT bar extenders, so I left them as well.



We assembled everything, installed a set of clubman bars:



We fabbed a seat bracket to support the fiberglass pan underneath. We also put a new Shinko 241 rear tire on it, and it went back to the shop that did the carbs to have them synched. At this point, it was complete enough to test ride, so I took it home (we had been working on it at my buddy's shop). I ended up having to swap out the 4 cam cover gaskets and the valve cover gaskets. The inside of the engine was spotless. The cam chain was still nice and tight, and the valves were still within spec, so I buttoned it all back up. I changed out the perished fork oil with some 20W, because the front end would dive badly upon hard braking. This has done the trick for the time being, and it rides nice and firm now.

I then set about blacking out all the chrome, beginning with the rear shocks, exhaust/footpeg mounts, and chain guard. I feel this really took the date off the bike:


After a few short rides, I found the bike struggled to rev past 6k, and was pretty sluggish (even for a 450). As it turned out, it was because the bike had no air filter, just the screen at the front of the box, before the carbs. I fabbed a makeshift filter out of seat foam, and this amazingly did the trick. It now pulls hard up to redline, and will spin the rear tire and kick the rear end out on a 9k 1-2 shift. I was pretty impressed by this little motor. I have since sourced the parts I need to complete the airbox (filter, cage, lid). I also found the nerve damage in my throttle hand was not agreeing with the clubman bars. My hand falls totally asleep within a few minutes, which I can deal with. But, the pressure it put on my hand because of the riding position was really making my hand hurt, and I didn't feel it was going to be safe like that. So I hated to do it, but I flipped the bars up. I don't hate how it looks, but it's definitely easier on my hand. I'd rather be able to ride it for more than 5 minutes without having to stop, than have the clubman look.


And this is how it sits now:



It's still a work in progress, as with most of your bikes, I'm sure. I still need to replace the front springs and rear shocks (thinking Sonic specific rate units), replace the front brake line (it's holding, but it's original), paint the wheels, paint the legs, paint the motor, add a set of mufflers with a little more sound to them, maybe do pods and swap the sprockets. I may change the tank out for a more cafe looking piece, and I'm on the fence about the tail section. It's a little long in my opinion, so I may get a shorter style pan, and maybe alter the rear of the frame where the current pan mounts. The good thing is it's a rider, so I can enjoy the bike while I'm working on it. That's how I did the 55 Chevy you see in some of the pictures. I found this to be the way to not lose interest or get discouraged. Get it running and road worthy, then do the details. I'll keep updating this as I change or complete things. I don't have the skill set or experience with bikes a lot of you guys do, but I'm working on it, and I'm always willing to learn!!

Thanks for looking!!
Feel free to comment, add suggestions, hate on it, whatever. ;D

Re: The Lucky Bastard lives!!

Signed up - I can follow builds much easier here......

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I also had an old Shoei open-face helmet I painted to match:

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I'll take the silence as a "If you don't have anything nice to say" sort of thing. ;D

Re: The Lucky Bastard lives!!

Looks damn solid to me!


Don't take the silence personally. There are so many folks on here that things get lost in the noise sometimes.


Cheers!

Re: The Lucky Bastard lives!!

Bozz said:

Looks damn solid to me!


Don't take the silence personally. There are so many folks on here that things get lost in the noise sometimes.


Cheers!

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Thanks!!
I actually WANT input, positive or negative. Because it's still a work in progress, maybe it will give me some ideas I hadn't considered. I don't take constructive criticism personally!!

Re: The Lucky Bastard lives!!

Ha!

Another big thing is that the majority of people comment on what they know. And Suzuki's are a rare breed here......so we have to stick together!

Re: The Lucky Bastard lives!!

Big Rich said:

Ha!

Another big thing is that the majority of people comment on what they know. And Suzuki's are a rare breed here......so we have to stick together!

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We'll take 'em all on. We'll take 'em all on, AND WIN!!!!

Re: The Lucky Bastard lives!!

Yeah sometimes silence is golden..LOL

Really though love the direction your taking her. I may steal the blacked out peg bracket mount idea from you as well when it gets warm enough. I think it would make my rearsets pop a little if done right.

GK

Re: The Lucky Bastard lives!!

gk45011 said:

Yeah sometimes silence is golden..LOL

Really though love the direction your taking her. I may steal the blacked out peg bracket mount idea from you as well when it gets warm enough. I think it would make my rearsets pop a little if done right.

GK

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;D
Thanks man.
I had first just scuffed all the chrome, but it still didn't look right to me. I used straight VHT Epoxy paint on all the chrome, and it has stuck well, even to the spring coils. I may look at chopping or removing the peg mounts when I change the mufflers out.

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Trying to decide whether to chop mine or not. I used mine for my rearset mounts so I am afraid if I shorten them to right behind the rearset mounts might get a little flex out of them I don't currently have.

if any of you suzuki guys have a spare take off i may try it on one to make sure it is structurally sound.

GK

Re: The Lucky Bastard lives!!

gk45011 said:

Trying to decide whether to chop mine or not. I used mine for my rearset mounts so I am afraid if I shorten them to right behind the rearset mounts might get a little flex out of them I don't currently have.

if any of you suzuki guys have a spare take off i may try it on one to make sure it is structurally sound.

GK

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Being my first build, I didn't want to cut mine up too much. As I get more comfortable with it, I may do some things like a front end and rear set swap. But for now, what's there is in good shape, and it works. I'd rather enjoy riding it for now than potentially screw something up.
We're going to build a 80 KZ440 for my buddy who helped me with this bike. It's going to be a good bit more radical.

Re: The Lucky Bastard lives!!

Did some hacking on the exhaust system this week. Wrapped the pipes, and fabbed some homemade baffles. Looks much cleaner without those ugly stock cans on it.





Here's how it sounds with no packing in the baffles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcvQuA4Sj7w&feature=plcp

With packing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu7FGovo_TQ&feature=context-cha

I used Chore Boy for the packing, but it wanted to wad up and block exhaust flow. So much that it didn't want to rev past 6k in gear.

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Really trying to not flip the clubman bars back over. The more I see the bars up like this, the less I like it. It just made my hands hurt with them flipped.

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Could go with some drag bars or superbike bars...

My biggest complaint with the 450 exhaust is that they put the mufflers right in front of the rear axle. Another fine example of engineers / designers NOT doing any work on the bike. Who wants to remove the exhaust that often?

Re: The Lucky Bastard lives!!

Big Rich said:

Could go with some drag bars or superbike bars...

My biggest complaint with the 450 exhaust is that they put the mufflers right in front of the rear axle. Another fine example of engineers / designers NOT doing any work on the bike. Who wants to remove the exhaust that often?

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You ain't kidding, and let me tell you, THREE of the 4 exhaust flange bolts snapped off. That was not fun fixing that mess.

I buddy gave me a set of drag bars to try on it. They're 1" when I need 7/8", but I at least got an idea of how it would look and feel. I may just put some drag bars on it.

Re: The Lucky Bastard lives!!

I have fond memories of riding on the back of my dad's Suzuki X6 Hustler on cold fall nights in Virginia.

Nice project. Love the paint.

Mike

Re: The Lucky Bastard lives!!

Wangofree said:

I have fond memories of riding on the back of my dad's Suzuki X6 Hustler on cold fall nights in Virginia.

Nice project. Love the paint.

Mike

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Thanks man, I appreciate it!! It's a work in progress, and will probably continue evolving.
Don't know where I got the bike bug. Definitely not from my dad, got my hot rod bug from him. Liked most guys, I started riding dirt bikes as a kid. Guess that's how it started.

Re: The Lucky Bastard lives!!

Mr. Sinister said:

Liked most guys, I started riding dirt bikes as a kid. Guess that's how it started.

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I think it's a progression - Skateboard - Bike - Mini Bike (or go cart) - Dirt Bike - Big Bike - then you're old and you go back to the stuff you grew up on.